A federal judge has ruled that Google will not have to sell its advertising technology business, a decision that stops short of the breakup sought by the U.S. Department of Justice. Judge Leonie M. Brinkema of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia issued the ruling Wednesday, saying Google must make changes but leaving those changes unspecified for now. The case had become a major test of whether antitrust law could force structural relief in the digital advertising market.

The Justice Department’s Monopoly Case

The DOJ filed its ad-tech lawsuit in 2023 during the Biden administration, accusing Google of building an integrated system that controlled nearly every step of the online display advertising process. The complaint said Google ran the dominant server that large publishers use to manage and sell ad space, the dominant buying platform that advertisers use to bid for that space, and the exchange that connects buyers with sellers. By owning all three layers, the government argued, Google could act as a gatekeeper for both supply and demand in the same marketplace. That arrangement, the DOJ said, harmed publishers by reducing revenue and harmed advertisers by raising costs.

Google disputed that framing throughout the trial. Its lawyers argued that the digital advertising market is much broader than the DOJ’s definition and that the company faces intense competition from other technology firms and from large retail media networks that sell ads on their own properties. Google also said publishers have many ways to sell inventory and that ad technology fees have fallen over time as the market evolved. The judge’s decision indicates that she was not willing to accept the DOJ’s most aggressive remedy even if she accepted many of its liability theories.

The Remedy Ruling

Brinkema’s order directs Google to make unspecified changes to its business practices rather than breaking up its ad technology operations. The ruling was placed under temporary seal so that Google can redact sensitive business information before a public version is released. That makes it difficult to know exactly what the judge has required, or how quickly Google must implement the changes. The Justice Department had pressed for a forced divestiture of the ad server and the exchange, arguing that halting the monopolization required a structural solution that would separate Google’s conflicts of interest.

Google welcomed the outcome. Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google’s vice president of regulatory affairs, said in a statement Wednesday that the company was pleased the court rejected the government’s proposal to split apart tools that, in her view, help small businesses reach new customers. She framed the decision as a validation of Google’s argument that its technology brings efficiencies to both sides of the digital ad market.

Parallels to the Search Case

The ruling comes less than two years after another federal judge found that Google had illegally protected its search monopoly through exclusionary distribution agreements. In that case, Judge Amit Mehta ruled in 2024 that Google’s payments to browser makers, mobile device manufacturers, and carriers suppressed rivals and blocked alternate search engines. During the later remedy phase in that case, Mehta also declined to order the drastic step of forcing Google to sell its Chrome browser. Together, the two decisions have frustrated critics who expected U.S. courts to use antitrust law more aggressively to restructure one of the world’s largest companies

Source:Gizmodo News